Ron Karkovice, Who Played 11 Years For The White Sox, Now Owns An Orlando Deli.

Not that he's tumbled to any kind of blue-collar low after 16 years of professional baseball, 11 of them in the majors as a catcher with the Chicago White Sox. He enjoys this part of his new gig.

Karkovice, a Boone High graduate and Orlando native (he's lived here since he was 8), opened Ronnie's Big League Deli in November off the northeast corner of Michigan and Fern Creek. The cozy, memorabilia-filled restaurant is just a precursor to the sports bar set to start serving in the back by the beginning of football season.

Karkovice, long a familiar face in this neighborhood, has learned a lot in the past few months (sometimes from scratch) about both the mechanics of the restaurant business and how to handle the cold cuts for your Big Comiskey (ham, salami, cappicola, marinara sauce, provolone and Italian seasoning).

"I knew how to make spaghetti and hamburgers, and my kids love when I cook them grilled cheese," Karkovice said. "But now I cook meatloaf, I cook steak and cheese. I cook ribs . . .''

His vision after trying a few other business ventures was to open a sports bar in his old neighborhood that would capitalize on his name and all that baseball kitsch he'd been hoarding in his pool room since he retired in 1997.

His friend and former teammate Alex Fernandez is in Miami running a sporting goods store, which leads us to think there might be some kind of theme here.

"I don't think you can ever get out of it," Karkovice said of the sports world. "It's hard when you played so long to come back and try to do something else and forget about it."

It was only about a year ago that Karkovice finally got comfortable settling in front of a game on TV, where he now follows the dwindling number of guys he once played alongside. This deli/sports bar seems the perfect venue for him to stay connected to the game -- and surrounded by it -- while also moving on.

One wall of the deli is lined with seats from Comiskey Park in Chicago, which was torn down in 1990. There's also a framed poster with autographs of everyone on the roster thatyear, when Karkovice shared the catching duties with Hall of Famer Carlton Fisk, and when Frank Thomas and Ozzie Guillen were teammates, not player and manager. There is also ample Boone memorabilia, including jerseys that once belonged to Karkovice and Joe Oliver, the other half of the obscure trivia answer to which two local high school teammates went on to catch in the majors at the same time?

One space on the wall is set aside for the baseball cards of every Boone player drafted into professional baseball. Karkovice has left plenty of room for that monument to grow.